The Crucible

Reclaimer, Book 1

By: Waldo Rodriguez

Narrated by: BJ Harrison

From the ashes of a dying world, a god will rise.

As an out of shape nerd, Gabriel Rivera had more pressing issues than outlandish things like godhood: Evacuating the city, joining the military, and protecting his family. Simple right?

Everything changed when the PAC invaded.

When the grim fate of his world is revealed, Gabriel joins the Reclaimer Project to save his family. A lowly F ranker, he's weaker than even the worst recruits. Good thing he's too stubborn for his own good.

Through blood and sweat Gabriel aims to grow stronger and rise above the rest.

Deadly traps lurk around every corner, mysterious factions move in the shadows, and dormant powers within him manifest in wild and dangerous ways.

Battered, bruised, and beaten, Gabriel refuses to stay down. For only in the fires of The Crucible are legends forged.

©2022 Waldo Rodriguez-Santiago (P)2023 Tantor

very good.

very thorough, and well thought out. consistently takes itself seriously and Harrison's performance excellently compliments the atory

Emotional yet thrilling

I loved the thoughts of trying to escape your situations by hiding yourself from everyone else. Only to be shown that the only way out of your individual torture is by communal growth.

Good scifi with a heavy military presence

The book is good, I enjoyed it greatly. I look forward to what comes after The Crucible

fantastic new world, very compelling characters

this is a fantastic new world with really compelling characters. we do not yet get to the root cause of what is going on to make this training happen but it is building!

It has potential

So, it's interesting and little plot armor to be found, rather brutal.

Now there is tons of moral questioning and self doubt and loathing, tons and tons of teenage angst of doing the right thing.

Then there is niave points where the "bad guy" of the book is in the right and the MC just throw a fit because he doesnt like the fact. Like leaving someone to die who would die and couldn't be saved but trying to could get them all killed. He doesnt like that fact so whines and blames the other guy for it, even though it's not the others guys fault. The MC is just upset at the other guys brutal blunt honesty about the fact of the situation and not sugar coating it to make the MC feel better.

So if you like the holes idealist who ignores facts to try to make everything seem black or white. This might be for you. If not you might at times lean towards the bad guy of the story and find the MC a niave idiot.

While the premise is interesting the program is supposed to take place over 2 years and 3 phases with the first phase being the first 3 months. Without to much spoiler, this book only covers the first phase. So the pacing is a little slow and makes on worry the whole series might be about training and not what comes after or takes 5 books to get to it.

So if you like school training completion books this is great, if you want them to get on with the actual story of what the training is for this might be a slow series for that if at all.